An Answer from Limbo is a 1962 novel by Brian Moore.
Previous posts on Moore’s novels:
I’ve read more than that, but those are the titles I’ve written about.
I talked about Catholics on the podcast our first year.
By the way, I saw a recent exchange on Catholics – either the movie or the book, I don’t remember – in which a Catholic traditionalist went into it with high hopes based on the premise and on what he’d heard about the plot, but came away a little mad and feeling betrayed because the novel ends in an ambiguous place in which the “good guy” stubborn traditionalist abbot bravely standing up to (aptly satirized) Conciliar changes turns out to be a more complicated figure, spiritually, than we first believe.
But it’s Brian Moore, so really, you can’t expect anything else. It’s what makes the short novel (very short, really a novella, available on Internet Archive) actually thought-provoking, rather than just flattering to one side or another.
Well, anyway. You know the story: I needed something to read, it was night, no library trip possible, so let’s find something to read on the tablet. I mean, I know, but I never said I don’t read books on the tablet. Much of the time, since publishers put books out of print as soon as a run sells (retaining those rights, of course) – and libraries love to pulp real books in order to make room for computers, if you want to read something published before 1980, you don’t want to buy it, well then, it’s your only choice.
So, I’ve read what’s generally considered the best Moore, but thought, what haven’t I read? Whatever it is, it’s Moore, so it’s going to be short, and that’s what I was looking for.
An Answer from Limbo popped up, I read it over the course of two nights, and, yes kind of short, but mostly: dark.
Especially if you’re, as we say these days, a creative.
What are you willing to sacrifice to get that book published, that gig, to get that post to go viral?
Published in 1962, it reflects Moore’s time in New York City during that period. I don’t know how much of Moore’s life it reflects beyond the expat Irish writer protagonist living in New York – I hope not much. Really. I very much hope nothing at all, in fact!
Brendan Tierney emigrated from Ireland about 8 years previous to the events of the novel. He’s married to an American, Jane, and they have two children. Brendan works for a literary magazine, has had stories published and has been working on a novel (haven’t we all) for a couple of years. He gets a hint that his novel might have possibility, and then, after a publishers reads the first couple of chapters, clear encouragement.
He decides to take the risk and put everything into finishing it. That means quitting his job, insisting his wife go back to work as a commercial artist (she doesn’t mind, she hates staying at home with the kids), and since they can’t afford to hire child care – he brings his widowed mother, Eileen, over from Ireland, to live with them and help out.
It does not go well.
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